Walking Boots

Good morning all.

What has happened to the weather? A gorgeous, almost summerlike weekend followed by chill winds and snow last night! We took advantage of the glorious weather on Sunday to visit the bluebells in Combermere Abbey woods. It's not really that far away and we had promised ourselves that we would go the next time there was an open day. I picked a leaflet up at the hairdressers last time I was there and made a note of the date on the blackboard. Well we nearly missed the date as we have in the past but luckily I noticed the date on Saturday afternoon so just before one, off we set. Lots of others had the same idea, for the place was rammed, old and young alike. The bluebells did themselves proud and we treated ourselves to tea and cake afterwards, I just had to buy a few plants for the border before we left! Max enjoyed himself, made a friend of a lady sheltie who kept glancing back to check he was still behind. 

Anyway the walk in the woods reminded me of this week's challenge at Cardz4Guyz which is -

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Love being out and about but don't go scrabbling over hill and dale these days, just a gentle stroll with the dog. I should have got the old boots out for the wood walk as there were lots of surface roots ready to trap the unwary walker in inappropriate footware! Here is my inspiration for you.

Knew I wanted to use this stamp from Woodware and the layout from Paper Players but what colour to use? I then stumbled across the latest challenge over at Sunday Stampers, although a picture of an orange on a branch the colours work really well here, walkers seem to go for brightly coloured laces these days!

To start I stamped the central panel with the tread stamp in Memento Espresso Truffle then the larger boots on a scrap of card. The orange edges on the central panel were made from scrap paper coloured with the darkest orange Copic marker I used for the laces. I coloured the boots with more Copics then fussy cut them out. On another scrap of card I scribbled some Copics to match the laces and cut out the CUTploratons die sentiment, then decided it needed some thing more so cut another and inked it in the same Espresso Truffle ink. Placing the orange slightly off center to allow the brown layer to show I glued them together, then attached it over my boots, weaving the lefthand lace through the first couple of letters of celebrate. On a MFT banner I stamped the rest of the greeting and placed it under the edge of the celebrate, glued flat on the sides and on pads in the center.

For more inspiration check out the rest of the team here, then why not join in.

I'd like to join in over at -